Big plays got the job done for Winnisquam football in D4 title game

It felt like the game was on the line and the Winnisquam Regional High School football team needed a big play.

Up 14-0 thanks to two touchdowns just two minutes apart in the first half, the Bears had struggled to move the ball consistently against Fall Mountain's defense and the Wildcats had threatened to break through on offense more than once since falling into the two-touchdown hole.

But after Winnisquam stopped Fall Mountain's offense at the Bears' 10-yard line midway through the fourth quarter of Saturday's Division IV championship game, the Bears started to pick up some momentum.

An 8-yard run by quarterback Phil Nichols on first down gave Winnisquam some breathing room, and on second down, the junior connected with Gunnar Horman for a 28-yard completion out to the 46. A 13-yard run by Nolan Perrino put the Bears on Fall Mountain's side of the field, but two plays later, they were facing a third-and-8 at the Wildcats' 36.

"When I lined up, I saw I was one-on-one with the corner and the safety was playing the middle," Winnisquam junior Garret Mango said of that third-down play. "I knew I had the matchup and I had to beat it, and that’s what I did."

Nichols saw the matchup, too, and got the ball to Mango, who outran the defense to the end zone, despite cramping up at about the 25-yard line.

"I was running," Mango said. "When I got there, I fell down and took a break. I was going the whole time and I wasn’t going to stop."

It was the kind of play Nichols would expect his receiver to make.

"He’s a tough kid," Nichols said of Mango, who missed time earlier in the game with a bloody nose. "The corner was playing off him and Garret Mango has speed. We knew he could beat him and that’s exactly what he did. It’s a good thing he got right back up because we needed him for the rest of the game."

Mango also had the second touchdown of the game for Winnisquam, turning another short pass into a 55-yard touchdown with 10:41 left in the first half. That came just two minutes after Horman had returned a Fall Mountain fumble 63 yards for the game's first score.

"They were huge," Mango said of his team's touchdowns. "Fall Mountain is a really good team, and if you look at all the plays we made, they were really big. Without those, we’re not winning this game."

Perhaps Mango's biggest play came late in the first half on defense. A strip sack of Nichols by Fall Mountain's Alex Flynn was recovered by Izaak Westover at the Winnisquam 27-yard line with 41.3 seconds left before halftime.

A 7-yard completion from Luke Gay to Camden Dunbar and a 5-yard run by Westover gave Fall Mountain a first down at the 15 with the clock running. The Wildcats had their best chance to that point at cutting into the 14-0 lead, but on the next play, Mango picked off Gay to end the threat.

"He showed you (Saturday) what he can do and he’s done that all season for us," Winnisquam coach Derek Hunt said of Mango. "It felt like a 7-0 game or a scoreless game, the way it was going back and forth. It didn’t feel like 14-0. I didn’t feel good and comfortable until we scored at the end, and knowing what the time was looking like. It was incredible."